Society-AMHARA
The Amhara are the politically and culturally dominant ethnic group
of Ethiopia. They are located primarily in the central highland plateau
of Ethiopia and comprise the major population element in the provinces
of Begemder and Gojjam and in parts of Shoa and Wallo. In terms of
the total Ethiopian population, however, the Amhara are a numerical
minority. The national population has usually been placed at between
14 and 22 million. It is generally estimated that the Amhara, together
with the closely related Tigre, constitute about one-third of this
total population. One of the most recent estimates gives the number
of native speakers of Amharic, the language of the Amhara, as approximately
7,800,000. (cf. Bender 1971:217) In comparison, there seems to be
general agreement that the Galla peoples form the largest ethnic component
in the country, comprising around 40 percent of the population. However,
most of these population figures should be regarded as crude approximations
since there has never been a comprehensive national census.
Amharic is classified as an Ethiosemitic language, which has been
influenced by indigenous Cushitic languages. It is the official language
of Ethiopia and, as such, has been an important factor in the Amharization
of other ethnic groups through its required use in schools and government
offices.
Ninety-five percent of the Amhara (and of all Ethiopians) depend on
farming and stock raising for subsistence. Just enough is raised to
live on and pay taxes. The lack of good transportation has made the
government's attempts to increase production futile. Irrigation, terracing,
and the iron-tipped, wooden scratch plow form the extent of the agricultural
technology. Cereals are the most important crops, with teff (Eragrostis
abyssinica) as the major cereal. The Amhara also grow barley, wheat,
maize, millet, and hops. Noncereal crops include broad beans, lentils,
and chickpeas. Bananas and coffee are important, but grow wild. Farming
is strictly men's work.
Ethiopia is primarily rural with fewer than 200,000 people living
in urban areas. There are few towns with over 10,000 people. Traditionally,
Amhara towns were just market centers where caravans stopped, people
came to trade, and a small group of artisans and merchants, often
foreigners, lived. This is true to a large extent even today. Most
Amhara live in small, kin-based hamlets surrounded by their farmlands,
and even urban Amhara are often part-time farmers.
Hoben (1963, 1973), Levine (1965), and Young (1970) claim that descent
among the Amhara is ambilineal, while Messing (1937) and Lipsky (19620
claim that it is usually patrilineal. Messing, however, notes that
the mother's family is of only slightly lesser importance. In either
case, the descent group is non-corporate and does not usually function
as a whole. Membership is not mutually exclusive, according to Hoben.
The groups have no ritual functions. They are only landholding units
whose members are the descendants of an apical ancestor and have a
potential right to the land he owned. It is only in watching over
and allocating the land that the group acts. Affinal relations are
weak, and divorce is permitted except in Coptic Church marriages.
The extended family usually inhabits its own hamlet, farms its own
lands, and is ruled by a council of elders. Postmarital residence
is generally virilocal, although Hoben notes that in the province
of Gojjam it is more often neolocal.
The Amhara have a stratified feudal society, although new elites are
emerging to challenge the old hierarchy. Social stratification involves
a number of distinctions which crosscut one another and whose intersections
define an individual's status. Position in the social hierarchy is
based on land tenure, feudal relations between nobles and peasants,
secular versus Coptic Church affiliation, ethnic division of skilled
labor, and, to a lesser extent, age and sex. At the top of the hierarchy
is (until just recently) the emperor, followed by a landed, feudal
nobility and clergy. Below them come various categories of farmers
and merchants, then lower-status peddlers, weavers, and minstrels.
Still lower on the scale are low-caste metalsmiths, potters, and tanners,
while at the bottom are the freed slaves, who are considered to be
below the social scale. For the caste groups, often composed of ethnic
minorities, there is no possibility of social mobility. Among the
landholding nobles and peasants, however, changes in land tenure means
changes in social status. Ethnic groups like the Falasha (Mosaic Jews
who are blacksmiths) and the Faqi (indigenous Cushites who are leather
tanners) are socially separate from the Amhara, but serve such important
functions for everyday life that their isolation is not extreme. They
live in separate hamlets, and interaction between these groups and
the Amhara is ritually restricted. Commercially they are in close
touch, however, since each needs the other's goods.
While the status of women is lower than that of men, it is not as
inferior as in many other Near Eastern or East African groups, especially
Islamic societies. Women are barred from church offices and from entering
the church, but in many ways noblewomen have roles comparable to men
and are treated with equal deference. Peasant women are more restricted
and have an inferior legal status, but after menopause their positions
often improve.
In theory, the emperor was the ultimate head of the entire Ethiopian
state, head of the army, the church, and disposer of all lands and
offices. In actuality, both the power of hereditary feudal lords and
the difficulty of travel restricted his authority until the advent
of modern communications and air travel in this century. While it
was in the best interests of the emperor to appoint as many loyal
provincial governors as he could, certain hereditary nobles held traditional
control of areas which the emperor, unless he wanted to go to war,
had little likelihood of reclaiming. Below the provincial governors
were the village chiefs (cheqa sum), who also, in theory, represent
and were appointed by the emperor. In most cases, however, they were
the hereditary leading men of the village. Governors more often had
a say in making a choice between contenders, and the emperor's role
in most situations was only to settle a dispute or make an appointment
official. A chief acted as a judge, presided over meetings of the
village council, attended weddings, and was involved in all land transfers
and disputes. He is the lowest representative of the emperor and was
responsible for communicating all decrees of the central government
to his village.
The Coptic Church split off from the western Christian Church in 451
A.D., and the Abyssinian Coptic Church split with the mother church
in Alexandria in 1948. The Coptic Church of Abyssinia is a very important
part of the life of the people. Messing claims that the people consider
Amhara and Abyssinian Christian to be synonymous, and that there is
a good deal of suspicion and ethnocentrism toward outsiders. The rules
of the church are regarded as law and are almost unchallengeable,
especially in rural areas. Priests do not preach--they perform ceremonies
and are supposed to influence laymen by the example of their holy
lives. The church is one of the country's largest landowners, and
priests farm the land around their churches. Priests often establish
their own residential family hamlets on church land and in the course
of time become local patriarchs.
The political dominance of the Amhara in Ethiopia has been manifested
in the preponderance of Amhara in top political offices, and in the
perpetuation of the Amhara monarchy. In fact, all but one of the emperors
of Ethiopia have been Amhara since the beginning of what is called
the restored Solomonid Dynasty in 1270 A.D. The overthrow of Emperor
Haile Selassie by a military junta in 1974 has precipitated a chain
of events which has radically altered the traditional Amhara social
system as portrayed above.
Messing's work (1957) is the basic source to be consulted as an orientation
to the Amhara.
Culture summary by Martin J. Malone and Robert O. Lagace
Bender, M.L.
The languages of Ethiopia: a new lexicostatistic classification and some problems of diffusion.
Anthropological Linguistics, 13 (1971): 165-288.
Hoben, Allan.
The role of ambilineal descent groups in Gojjam Amhara social organization.
Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1963.
Dissertation (Anthropology) -- University of California, Berkeley, 1963.
Hoben, Allan.
Land tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia;
the dynamics of cognatic descent.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Levine, Donald Nathan.
Wax and gold;
tradition and innovation in Ethiopian culture.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1965.
16, 315 p. illus., map, tables.
Lipsky, George A. Ethiopia: its people, its society, its culture.
By George A. Lipsky in collaboration with Wendell Blanchard, Abraham M. Hirsch, and Bela C. Maday.
New Haven, HRAF Press, 1962.
Messing, Simon David.
The highland-plateau Amhara of Ethiopia.
Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1975.
35, 715 l. tables.
(University Microfilms Publications, no.
23,619) Dissertation (Anthropology) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1957.
Young, Allan Louis.
Medical beliefs and practices of Begemder Amhara.
Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1970 [1972 copy].
20, 257 l. illus., maps.
(University Microfilms Publications, no.
71-19, 303) Dissertation (Anthropology) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1970.
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